Between the fiscal cliff, Hurricane Sandy, and the tragic Newtown
shootings, shoppers weren't in the mood.

"A lot of the Christmas spirit was left behind way back in Black
Friday weekend," Marshal Cohen, chief research analyst at NPD
Group, told
the AP. "We had one reason after another for consumers to
say, 'I'm going to stick to my list and not go beyond it.'"

Even by offering
steep discounts in the final moments, retailers didn't manage
to get enough shoppers into stores to buy up merchandise. They
resorted to "contingency promotional plans" in their panic as
Christmas closed in, wrote Lazard Capital Markets analyst Jennifer Davis
in a note to clients.

"Traffic definitely picked up over the last weekend, but we
believe sales were not quite as robust as hoped. The
extra weekend before Christmas this year, compounded by the
warm weather, amplified the post Black Friday lull," she wrote.